March 4, 1898.] 



SCIENCE. 



31S 



hawk. They wear tail caps of tapir skin 

 and adorn their necks with strings of bones 

 and teeth. They are somewhat undersized, 

 prognathic and brachycephalic. 



Strange to say, their language was not 

 studied, the small vocabulary given, which 

 is Guarani, being probably a blunder. Dr. 

 Ehrenreich, from whose article in Globus I 

 borrow the notice, inclines to believe them 

 allied to the Botocudos. 



D. G. Beinton. 



TJniveesity of Pennsylvania. 



SCIENTIFIC NOTES AND NEWS. 

 The act of incorporation of the Washington 

 Academy of Sciences states that its object is the 

 promotion of science with power : 



a. To acquire, hold and convey real estate and 

 other property, and to estahlish general and special 

 funds. 



b. To hold meetings. 



e. To puhlish and distrihute documents. 



d. To conduct lectures. 



e. To conduct, endow or assist investigation in 

 any department of science. 



/. To acquire and maintain a lihrary. 



g. And, in general, to transact any husinesa perti- 

 nent to an academy of sciences. 



The nucleus of 75 members elected by the 

 Joint Commission held the first meeting of the 

 Academy on February 16th, when oflicers were 

 elected as follows: President, J. R. Eastman; 

 Secretary, 6. K. Gilbert; Treasurer, Ber- 

 nard R. Green ; Managers, Alexander Gra- 

 ham Bell, Frank Baker, F. W. Clarke, C. 

 Hart Merriam, H. S. Pritchett, George M. 

 Sternberg, Charles D. Walcott, Lester F. 

 Ward and Carroll D. Wright. The seven Vice- 

 Presidents will be nominated by the seven af- 

 filiated societies — Anthropological, Biological, 

 Chemical, National Geographic, Geological, En- 

 tomological and Philosophical. The nucleus of 

 75 will probably be considerably enlarged at the 

 next meeting by the addition, as original mem- 

 bers, of persons nominated by a committee 

 appointed for that purpose at the last meeting. 



The New York Academy of Sciences held 

 its annual meeting on February 28th, when the 

 retiring President, Professor J. J. Stevenson, 

 made an address on ' The World's Debt to Pure 



Science.' The following oflScers for the ensuing 

 year were elected : President, Henry F. Os- 

 BORN ; 1st Vice-President, Nathaniel L. Brit- 

 ton ; 2d Vice-President, James F. Kemp ; Cor- 

 responding Secretary, Richard E. Dodge ; 

 Treasurer, Charles F. Cox ; Librarian, Ar- 

 thur HOLLICK. 



The New York Zoological Society has secured 

 the $100,000 needed to enable it to take pos- 

 session of the site provided by the city for a 

 Zoological Garden. The total amount sub- 

 scribed is $103,550. There have been thirteeni 

 $5,000 subscriptions by Levi P. Morton, W. K. 

 Vanderbilt, Oswald Ottendorfer, Percy R. Pyne, 

 William E. Dodge, Robert Goelet, J. Pierpont 

 Morgan, Jacob H. SchiflT, William D. Sloane,. 

 William C. Whitney, C. P. Huntington, Henry 

 A. C. Taylor and George J. Gould. According 

 to the terms of the agreement between the So- 

 ciety and the city, as effected last year with the 

 Commissioners of the Sinking Fund, the Society 

 is under obligation to raise $250,000 for build- 

 ings and collections, of which sum $100,000 

 must be in the Society's treasury on or before 

 March 24, 1898, and it was agreed that the 

 Society could not take possession of the site 

 until that amount had been provided. 



We regret to learn that Professor W. A. 

 Rogers, the physicist, is dangerously ill. 



Dr. Rudolf Leuckart, professor of zoology 

 at Leipzig, died on February 7th at Leipzig, at 

 the age of seventy-four years. 



We also regret to record the death of Profes- 

 sor Knud Styffe, Director of the School of Tech- 

 nology at Stockholm, and of M. P. B. L. Ver- 

 lot, the botanist, at Verrieres-les-Brusson. 



The Paris Academy of Sciences has passed 

 resolutions expressing regret at the death of 

 the publisher Jean-Albert Gauthier-Villars and 

 their appreciation of the value to science of his 

 services in publishing works such as those of 

 Lagrange, Fermat, Fourier, Cauchy and others. 



It wished to raise by international subscrip- 

 tion a fund for a memorial to the late Edmund 

 Drechsel, the eminent physiological chemist, 

 and for the education of his two sons. Sub- 

 scriptions may be sent to Professor Kronecke, 

 University of Berlin. 



A MEMORIAL will be erected in the chemical 

 laboratory of Bonn to August Kekule, who for- 



